Innovative SmartPill Motility Capsule
SmartPill Motility Capsule contains pH, temperature and pressure sensors that capture data on gastrointestinal physiology as it travels through the digestive tract.
The SmartPill motility capsule is a cutting-edge tool used not only in routine healthcare but also in groundbreaking research to explore the digestive system. Imagine swallowing a pill similar in size to a vitamin capsule, but loaded with advanced sensors. This SmartPill travels through your digestive tract like food, gathering valuable data about its environment.
What does the SmartPill do? It measures how your stomach and intestines are working by recording things like the acid levels (pH), temperature, and the time it takes for the pill to move through your gut. These measurements are crucial for understanding digestive disorders, such as when the stomach empties too slowly (gastroparesis) or in cases of constipation.
In research, the SmartPill is helping scientists gain new insights into how the digestive system works in health and disease. The SmartPill is really helpful for understanding how the movement of our digestive system and the level of acid in our stomach affect the way our body handles oral medications. The capsule wirelessly transmits all the data to a small receiver, eliminating the need for invasive procedures.
Once its journey is complete, the SmartPill is naturally passed out of the body. This innovative device not only aids doctors in diagnosing and treating patients but also plays a pivotal role in advancing medical research, leading to better treatments and understanding of gastrointestinal health.
The SmartPill motility capsule offers invaluable insights into the how gastrointestinal (GI) physiology changes, especially in older people and geriatric patients, affect pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of medications. The SmartPill, through its detailed tracking of GI transit time and environmental conditions, provides critical data for optimizing drug formulations specifically for this demographic. Researchers can assess how oral medications interact with the slower or faster gastric emptying and altered pH levels, ensuring better therapeutic outcomes.
This technology is crucial in developing age-appropriate, controlled-release and targeted drug delivery systems. The SmartPill’s data aids in tailoring release mechanisms to suit the altered GI transit times in the older people and geriatric patients, enhancing the effectiveness and minimizing the side effects of medications.
Furthermore, the SmartPill’s non-invasive nature is a significant advantage in geriatric research. Older patients, who often have multiple health issues, benefit from the capsule’s ease of use and minimal discomfort, increasing compliance in clinical trials.
All in all, the SmartPill motility capsule is an essential tool for researchers dedicated to geriatric medicine. Its ability to provide detailed, real-time data on GI function in older adults is invaluable in developing safer, more effective drug therapies tailored to the unique needs of this growing population.
About the artist
Angela Elma Edwina researches the effect of frequently used drugs and malnutrition, which is common in older age, on transit times and GI pH levels. She will use the collected reference data to improve in vitro tools and PBPK modelling. The above photograph shows the SmartPill she uses in her study.